employment

Letter of invitation sent out by the United Community Corporation (UCC) to encourage participation in the development of Area Boards throughout the city of Newark. The Area Boards were established as Community Action Programs to allow “maximum feasible participation” in the UCC from city residents in their neighborhoods. — Credit: Newark Public Library

Address given by Mayor Addonizio to the Board of Directors of the United Community Corporation (UCC) in which he offers his views on what roles the organization should play in Newark. In the address, Addonizio urges the Board to “keep the UCC out of politics.” City officials in Newark feared that the antipoverty program would become a parallel government and undermine their political power in the city. — Credit: Newark Public Library

Testimony of Marion Kidd, head of the Welfare Committee of the People’s Action Group (UCC Area Board #3), before the Governor’s Select Commission on Civil Disorder on October 17, 1967. In her testimony, Ms. Kidd explains the welfare system in Newark and the ways in which her committee organized to protect the rights of welfare recipients in the city. — Credit: Rutgers University Digital Legal Library Repository

Summary report from New Jersey’s Division of Public Welfare on the state’s assistance activities for the month of June, 1967. The report provides detailed information on the type and scope of welfare assistance provided, along with important statistics on “length of time on assistance” (p. 4) and “amount expended on assistance per inhabitant” (p. 5). — Credit: New Jersey State Archives

Application form for emergency assistance through the City of Newark’s Division of Welfare. The regulations for welfare recipients could be very strictly enforced, particularly in regards to living arrangements and sources of income, and could result in termination of benefits. — Credit: New Jersey State Archives

Excerpt from the antipoverty program proposal of the Blazer Council Work Program. The Blazer Program provided job training for Newark’s poor Black and Puerto Rican communities to prepare workers for skilled employment in six areas: food preparation-catering, upholstery, automotive skills, floor polishing and scraping, dressmaking, and renovation and repair. — Credit: Junius Williams Papers

A view of the Blazer Work Training Program’s automotive program from the United Community Corporation’s 1966-1967 Program Report. The Blazer Program provided job training to Newark’s poor Black and Puerto Rican communities to prepare workers for skilled employment. — Credit: New Jersey State Archives

Flyer distributed by the Newark Coordinating Council (NCC) and the NAACP announcing a rally to organize around employment discrimination in the building and construction trades in Newark. Despite momentous protests at the Barringer High School construction site two years earlier, Newark’s Black and Puerto Rican communities still struggled to gain equal employment opportunities in the building and construction industries. — Credit: Newark Public Library

Pamphlet distributed by the Newark Full Employment Project, a collaborative effort of organizations including the Clinton Hill Neighborhood Council and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) to combat unemployment in the city in 1964. — Credit: Newark Public Library

Article from an unmarked newspaper on March 25, 1964, covering the plans of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to launch a ‘direct action campaign’ against the New Jersey Bell Telephone Company. CORE launced the campaign in an attempt to force the company to hire a greater proportion of African American workers and supervisors. At the time, only 16 of the company’s 2,200 supervisors were African American. — Credit: Newark Public Library